


The Shoebox of Shame

by amidtheflowers



Series: Darcyland April Fools Challenge [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And also is the same age, April Fools Fic, Crack, Established Relationship, F/M, Peggy Carter Lives, mentions of lovely lovemaking 1940s style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 05:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10530195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amidtheflowers/pseuds/amidtheflowers
Summary: Bucky showing up unannounced is enough to make Steve suspicious. Darcy standing there with him? That's nothing but pure trouble.“She found a box,” Bucky said plainly.





	

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO!
> 
> This is Day Two of the DLAF Challenge: **Ridiculous Adjectives**. I got a few of them in, hope you like them ;)
> 
> This universe has Peggy Carter alive, well, and de-aged like Bucky and Steve. *waves magic wand* It's totally possible and happened so whatever you need to reconcile that in your mind, use it. And voila! There be this fic.
> 
> Enjoy xx

Steve Rogers was a man of routine.

Wake up, jog with Sam and Bucky, have breakfast, be on his way. It’d been like this for—well, for as long as he can remember, really. And it worked for him, it really did.

Routine did not involve Bucky showing up at his doorstep in the evening—not at nearly ten o’clock at night. Or Darcy standing next to Bucky, clutching a shoebox to her chest as if her life depended on it.

“Heya Steve,” Darcy said cheerfully. “We were just cleaning up some things and I noticed something very peculiar in one of Bucky’s bins—”

“She found a box,” Bucky said plainly.

“A box,” Steve repeated, moving over to let them inside.

“Yeah, some of our things got mixed up when we were still roommates,” Bucky explained, settling next to Darcy on the sofa and crossing his feet.

Darcy gave a small shudder. “Please, let’s not visit the terrible days you two were roommates.”

Steve balked. “That was a fun time. Right, Buck?”

Bucky coughed, a little too loudly. “Oh, for sure, for sure.”

Steve gave him a look. “Right…well you didn’t need to come this late just to give me my stuff back. Coulda just handed it to me before our run in the morning.”

“Oh, believe me, it’s not bother,” Darcy interjected, smiling. A little too wide. Steve narrowed his eyes and turned to Bucky, who was studiously squinting at the ceiling and mouthing the number of tiles he was counting. “Say, where’s Peggy?” Darcy asked.

Steve reluctantly looked away from Bucky, who decided to start over mid-count, and returned his attention to Darcy. “Uh, in the kitchen. You want me to…”

“PEGGY! Sorry, what was that, Steve? Hey, you wanna see what’s in the box? I definitely have no idea what’s in there, I mean, my imagination has just been,” Darcy made a loopy gesture with her fingers, “running wild. Probably old stuff. Super old. Granddad status, am I right, Bucky?”

“Twenty-one, twenty-two…what’s granddad status? Whoops,” Bucky made to fix his boots but grazed his metal fingers on the edge of the small box, flipping the lid open and sending it shuffling across the coffee table. “Sorry, Steve, sometimes my fingers twitch a bit on their own, you know, with the recalibration shit. Because I don’t have a real hand anymore. In case you forgot. I think it’s important to remember that about an old friend—how they were, you know, captured by Nazis and lost their arm and totally had a hard time for a while back there. It’s good to remember they’re your best friend. Since the twenties. Best friend, and their girlfriend by extension too. Huh, would ya look at that,” Bucky peered inside the box. “These are some army mementos, ain’t they, Stevie?”

“They are,” Steve said slowly, reaching for the box. A little smile twitched at the corner of his lips as Steve picked up a little wooden medallion. “See this? I carved it myself, the day before I was supposed to get the serum.” He swallowed as memories rose in the back of his mind like clear water in a lake, rippling and bringing warmth to his chest.

He hardly noticed when Peggy came into the room until Steve felt the warmth of her hand on his shoulder.

“Are these from the war?” Peggy asked softly, smiling a little.

“Yeah,” Steve nodded, looking back down at the box and shifting some of the things around in it. Peggy reached over and flitted a few things here and there, until her fingers wrapped around a small journal and made a noise of glee.

“Darling, look! It’s the journal you used to draw in, do you remember? Oh,” she grinned, turning it over so the back cover showed, “there’s the little flower you carved into the leather, the night you returned from Azzano.”

Suddenly, Steve’s mind came to a screeching halt.

“Oh no,” said Steve, paling.

“Oh yes,” said Bucky, smiling.

“What’s in it?” Darcy asked, a hopeful look in her eyes that Steve didn’t trust for one goddamn second.

Steve jumped to his feet, taking Peggy by the shoulders. “Y’know, Peg, it’s real late, why don’t we,” Steve yawned widely, ignoring the slight discomfort when his jaw cracked, “pick back up on this later? Tomorrow morning. I’ll see Bucky and Darcy out,” he tried reaching for the journal but Peggy sidestepped him easily, flipping through the pages.

“No, look, it’s really quite lovely,” Peggy explained to Bucky and Darcy, holding the journal up higher. “Here’s a sketch he did of me while he was on tour performing as the Captain—the outfit was quite different in those days.”

“Oh, I remember,” Darcy said seriously, her eyes comically wide. “What else is in there?”

“Peggy—” Steve begged, but it was too late. She’d flipped to the last page.

Peggy looked up at Steve in surprise. “You wrote a poem about me?”

Steve sighed. “Yes,” he said, resigned. He shot a murderous look at Bucky, who immediately sobered and started counting tiles again with utmost concentration.

“This is lovely,” Peggy started to smile. “‘ _Margaret’_ , by Steven Rogers. Sweetheart,” she said fondly to Steve, who smiled back weakly.

“I’ve never seen this poem, can you read it to us?” Bucky asked, smiling genially. Steve groaned.

“Peg, I was young. Just—remember that.”

Peggy lifted a brow. She turned to the page, opening her mouth to read, but promptly closed it shut. Bucky and Darcy were watching in breathless anticipation, leaning forward on the sofa with identical expectant looks. Peggy cleared her throat, closing the book. “Yes, well, it’s very late and I’m very tired. This was lovely, thank you both.”

“Aren’t you gonna read it?” Bucky asked innocently.

“I’d rather not.”

“I was really hoping for some—what was it, Bucky?” Darcy glanced at Bucky. “‘ _She was volcanic, enigmatic, her love chasing away all panic’—”_

“ _‘Moist as a rose, softer than cream’_ —” Bucky added, and Steve rolled his eyes.

“ _‘I felt virile, I felt divine, all I wanted was to make her mine’_ —” Darcy said in a sing-song voice, until Peggy had to bite her lip to stop from laughing.

“Honestly you two,” Peggy shook her head, sidling against Steve whose head was now in his hand, and gently swept her hand down his back. “It’s a sweet little poem, and I won’t have you ruin that. So he’s no Shakespeare...”

“Or anyone this century,” Bucky offered.

Peggy narrowed her eyes. “I recall you making quite a spectacle of yourself after you and Darcy first spent _your_ first night together. Thor gave you two barrels of Asgardian ale that night, and I _seem_ to remember having my phone out filming certain bits of your…declaration.”

This time, Bucky went pale. “You know, now that I think about it? It’s a great fuckin’ poem. Best love poem I ever read. Right, Darce?”

Darcy ticked up a brow. “Are you kidding? Where’s this video of Bucky and how fast can I get my hands on it?”

Peggy grinned, and Bucky turned quickly to Steve. “Best friend since the twenties. No. Arm.”

Steve whistled low, shrugging. “Sorry, Buck. Don’t remember any of that except the pain in my back where you stabbed me five minutes ago.”


End file.
